What's in that Magic Box? The Home Entertainment Center's Special Protocol Potion, Revealed

Digital entertainment is going to be enjoyed at home through computer-centered services and broadband wireless connectivity. The hub of a home entertainment system will be based on a "magic box" able to handle all sort of multimedia data and deliver them in a fair and efficient way throughout the house. Unfortunately, with current systems, real-time applications (e.g., video streaming, online games) suffer from delays caused by the interference with elastic (e.g., downloading) ones. We provide insight on this problem and reveal the "special protocol potion" we blended to heal home entertainment systems from it. Indeed, our recipe is simply composed by i) an enhanced access point, ii) standard protocol features, and iii) a smart use of the available information on the on-going traffic. This way, we are able to achieve low per-packet delays and high throughputs, thus satisfying the requirements of both real-time and elastic applications. Most important to mention, our special potion is also free from side effects as it does not require modifications to Internet's protocols or architecture